Bulgogi-Inspired Lettuce Wraps

A quick meal when I don't have time for proper Korean bbq

Happy Mother’s Day to all the other moms out there—and to everyone mothering their families and communities in so many ways.

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I’ve been craving Korean bbq lately. If you’ve never been to a proper Korean bbq spot, you should rectify that immediately. At a traditional bbq meal, you choose from a variety of proteins and cook your choices on a grill built into (or set on top of) the table. Once a piece of meat is cooked to your ideal level of doneness—you’ll want to get a nice sear on it at the very least—you can eat it with just a little bit of dipping sauce or put it into a piece of lettuce with the sauce and some accompaniments, like green onion and garlic, and eat it as a little hand-held wrap. In between bites of meat, you enjoy all kinds of banchan (the side dishes that come with pretty much any Korean meal), including various kimchis. Rice comes at the end of the meal. The process of sitting around and cooking the food together makes the meal relaxed and fun, a perfect way to spend time with friends or break the ice with work colleagues.

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My new book, SNACKING DINNERS, launched last month! Check out my events page for upcoming talks, signings, and pop-ups in the Bay Area, New York, London, and more!

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You can make a traditional bbq meal at home, if you have the right kind of equipment. The meal might be a little less formal, with fewer side dishes (everything, including rice, served all at once), but it’s just as much fun. I, however, do not have anything I can use to create a grill on my dining room table—and on a weeknight, I also don’t have time to do something this elaborate. So the other day, I came up with a cheater’s version that I could do quickly on the weeknight that would offer a similar flavor (if not the nuance and fun of the real thing):

I started with skirt steak, because it cooks up really quickly, and sliced it very thin before marinating it, so that the sauce had more surface area to soak into—this cut the marinating time down from 2+ hours to just a few mins. (I also omitted the grated pear, apple, or other fruit that you often see in these marinades that adds sweetness and helps tenderize the meat; I did squeeze in a little wedge’s worth of fresh orange juice.) I then seared the meat in a non-stick pan with some of the sauce on it, so the soy sauce and sugar and mirin would sort of caramelize onto the steak. When done, each little piece of meat was a tiny flavor bomb.

To serve these little flavorful bits of meat, I set out some freshly cooked rice (I started my rice cooker before doing any other prep), cleaned lettuce leaves, whatever herbs I had in my garden (perilla/shiso is common in restaurants, but I don’t have any right now), and some good store-bought kimchi. And since we were messing with the format anyway, I piled my rice right into the lettuce leaf, as I would if making a sushi hand roll and even added some kimchi, too; both helped balance the super-charged meat. The result wasn’t exactly Korean bbq, but it was scratched the itch, and it was absolutely delicious—and extremely fun to eat!

This recipe is very flexible and can be expanded to feed as many people as you like. I made ½ a pound of beef and two rice cooker cups’ worth of jasmine rice, washed the leaves of one head of butter lettuce (the “living lettuce” type), and ended up with just barely the right amount of food for my family of three—and two of the three of us were not especially hungry. So, I’d say the amount below feeds two hungry people with the potential for leftovers.

Bulgogi-Inspired Lettuce Wraps

Serves 2

2 rice cups’ worth of dried jasmine rice
¼ cup Japanese-style soy sauce or tamari
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
2 teaspoons mirin
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
1 teaspoon orange juice
2 cloves garlic
1-inch piece ginger, peeled
Freshly ground black pepper
½ pound skirt steak
1–2 scallions
Cabbage kimchi
Fresh herbs, such as perilla (shiso), basil, mint, and/or cilantro

1. Start the rice in a rice cooker or on the stove.

2. Mix the soy sauce, sugar, mirin, sesame oil, and orange juice in a small bowl and grate in the garlic and the ginger, then season everything with a few good grinds of pepper.

3. Cut the steak into very thin slices and mix it into the marinade. Let it sit, stirring and flipping it occasionally, while you wash your lettuce and herbs and thinly slice your scallions. Line everything up on a serving plate along with some kimchi (or divide between individual plates).

4. When your fresh ingredients are ready (or when the rice cooker is about 10 minutes from being finished), heat a large nonstick pan on the stove over high. Add the meat to the pan, along with any marinade that clings to it. Use chopsticks to spread the meat out in the pan; the marinade will form a pool around it.

5. Let the marinade bubble away and condense onto the meat, flipping the pieces occasionally so they cook evenly, especially when the marinade has almost all bubbled away (and attached to the meat), so that nothing burns. Cook the meat for another minute or so, until it is nice and brown on at least one side; if the marinade starts to stick to any part of the pan, remove the pan from the heat immediately so that it won’t burn.*

6. Transfer the meat to a serving plate, transfer the rice to a serving bowl, and bring everything to the table. To eat, put a small scoop of rice onto a lettuce leaf and top it with just a bit of the meat and the toppings; fold everything up together and take a bite.

*to remove stuck-on marinade from the pan, rinse it well, then fill it with about 1” of water and bring the water to a boil. Let the mixture water boil for a minute or two and it will pull up the stuck-on sauce.

One Amazing Month of Book Events!

The Snacking Dinners cookbook has been out in the world for just over a month, and it’s been such a wild ride! I’m so very grateful to everyone who has bought a copy of the book and come out for all of the amazing events I’ve been able to participate in. I have more events coming up (I’ll list them below), but if you’re not able to come say hi in person, and you’d like a signed copy, you can order one from Now Serving in LA, Omnivore Books in SF, or Chaucer’s Books in Santa Barbara.

Upcoming Event Dates:

Saturday, May 31st: Rose’s Taproom, Oakland, 3-6pm
I’m teaming up with one of my oldest friends, Hilary Rose Hufford (her family moved in next door when I was seven!) to do a collaboration. We’ll have dishes from the book paired with her gorgeous beers. Should be delicious!

Late June - London TBD

Saturday, July 19th: Gold Ridge Organic Farms, Sebastopol, 10:30–11:30am
Recipe demo and tasting with farm ingredients. Come see how I use local ingredients to make one of my very favorite snacking dinners; tour the beautiful farm; and taste award-winning olive oils, vinegars, and other products.

Tuesday, July 29th: Book Society, Berkeley, 6-8pm
Talk and discussion at Berkeley’s only book/wine shop! We’ll be tasting dishes from the book (and wine pairings, if you like) and talking all things snacky. Adults only.

Mid-August - NYC, TBD

Saturday, Aug 16th: Talbot & Arding, Hudson, NY, Time TBD
Come see me in Hudson at one of my favorite specialty food stores. They’ll be offering dishes based on recipes in the book, and I’ll be available to chat and sign books!

Photos: Georgia Freedman, Jennifer Freed, Georgia Freedman, Melodee Meyer, Georgia Freedman, Andrew Hicks, Jennifer Freed, Georgia Freedman, BB Huff